Τ Chapter T. VOYAGE TO THE EAST END OF CUBA. [1494.] HE expedition of Columbus, which we are now about to record, may appear of minor importance at the present day, leading as it did to no grand discovery, and merely extending along the coasts of islands with which the reader is sufficiently familiar. Some may feel impatient at the development of opinions and conjectures which have long since been proved to be fallacious, and the detail of exploring enterprises undertaken in error, and which they know must end in disappointment. But to feel these voyages properly, we must, in a manner, divest ourselves occasionally of the information we possess relative to the countries visited; we must transport ourselves to the time, and identify ourselves with Columbus, thus fearlessly launching into seas where as yet a civilized sail had never been unfurled. We must accompany him, step by step, in his cautious but bold advances along the bays and channels of an unknown coast, ignorant of the dangers which might lurk around, or which might await him in the interminable region of mystery that still kept waiting upon his view. We must, as it were, consult with him as to each new reach of shadowy land, and long line of promontory, that we see faintly emerging from the ocean and stretching along the distant horizon. We must watch with him each light canoe that comes skimming the billows, to gather from the looks, the ornaments, and the imperfect communications of its wandering crew, whether those unknown lands are also savage and uncultivated, whether they are islands in the ocean, untrodden as yet by uncivilized man, or tracts of the old continent of Asia, and wild frontiers of its populous and splendid empires. We must enter into his very thoughts and fancies, find out the data that assisted his judgment, and the hints that excited his conjectures, and, for a time, clothe the regions through which we are accompanying him, with the gorgeous coloring of his own imagination. In this way we may delude ourselves into participation of the delight of ex ploring unknown and magnificent lands, where new wonders and beauties break upon us at every step, and we may ultimately be able, as it were from our own familiar acquaintance, to form an opinion of the character of this extraordinary man, and of the nature of his enterprise. The plan of the present expedition of Columbus was to revisit the coast of Cuba at the point where he had abandoned it on his first voyage, and thence to explore it on the southern side. As has already been observed he supposed it to be a continent, and the extreme end of Asia, and if so, by following its shores in the proposed direction he must eventually arrive at Cathay and those other rich and commercial, though semi-barbarous countries described by Mandeville and Marco Polo.* He set sail with his little squadron from the harbor of Isabella on the 24th of April, and steered to the westward. After touching at Monte Christi he anchored on the same day at the disastrous harbor of La Navidad. His object in revisiting this melancholy scene was to obtain an interview with Guacanagari, who, he understood, had returned to his former residence. He could not be persuaded of the perfidy of that cacique, so deep was the impression * Cura de los Palacios, cap. 123, MS. |